take me to the finish line
by but seriously
Summary: "No, no, no," Stefan says, and he's clutching her closer. Remember this, he whispers into her hair. Remember this, remember this.


i had this written months and months ago as a request on tumblr, and after months of anxious nail-biting i decided to finally post it up here. prompted by knives-and-lint: "stefan/caroline—they finally found you, just as the air was coldest at dawn, well it was cold and silver all the weeks that you were gone."

* * *

**take me to the finish line**

**—**

The edge of the horizon was a rainbow swallowing her whole. A rainbow. Every colour. Like a pinwheel the sun was, no pansy oranges and pastel pinks but a freaking _pinwheel_, knocking her down, stealing her breath. She's never seen so much colour. It must be a dream, she thinks, her arms painted spectral from the sunrise. It must be a dream.

"It's not," Stefan says. His eyes are mercury. A long time ago she would have said his eyes reminded her of blades glinting silver in the moonlight; an even longer time ago she would have thought they dripped blood.

"Where are we?" Caroline asks, turning her arms to better admire her new skin. Stefan grasps her hand in his, lowers his lips to graze her knuckles. Like your regular Prince Charming, hair flopping down over his forehead and fangs whispering in and out of view. My, my, my.

Stefan's lips part against her skin. She feels his breath, hot and wet.

Where are we?

Caroline, Caroline, Caroline.

—

And they're running. Jumping through hoops of fire, her hair tangling in her breath, choked against her windless laugh. Stefan looks as if his sleeves might catch on fire, the careless whoop of his arm as he lopes ahead of her, far from graceful. Nothing about him is ever graceful.

"We're not like, dead or anything. Are we?" she calls. She doesn't raise her voice. He's a vampire, he'll hear her.

"We're jumping through hoops of _fire_, Care." She can practically hear his eyeroll, a harsh clang. "Maybe we're in some circus limbo."

That's not funny, she wants to tell him, but a wrong step, an arm caught too late, and she's tumbling down, shoulders stained a cinestyle green, grass matted into her hair.

Stefan turns; he's on her in an instant. Knees on either side of her thighs, hands pushing her down.

You're supposed to be helping me _up_, she spits, but he doesn't hear her because he's laughing too hard. He rolls off of her, still laughing, and she sits up. Glares at him. Brushes grass and mud off of her dress, which was new and _totes_ _amaze _and now totes ruined.

"You are the worst."

Stefan's laugh dwindles to a stop, he turns his head to look at her, his teeth eerily pointed in his smile. "You think so?"

—

A Ripper doesn't stop, a Ripper only rips.

Say that three times fast.

A Ripper doesn't stop, a Ripper only rips a ripper doesn't stop a ripper only rips a ripper doesn't stop a ripper only rips a ripper stop rips a ripper—stop—rips—_no_—ripper he's a ripper he's a ripper—a ripper only rips—_a ripper_ _rips—_

_"Caroline!"_ he's shaking her, eyes bearing into hers, breath harsh and urgent on her cheeks. "Stop it, Caroline, it's not real, it's not me—"

"A ripper only rips," she says but she's crying but she's screaming but she's shaking, and there's blood down the front of her dress – totes ruined – so much blood—

"Caroline," Stefan says again. It's like medicine on his lips, an antibiotic that would not take.

She's crying. Her tears feel hot, streaming down her face. Hot and wet and salty and metallic. Blood.

"I killed them," she says. She cries.

—

"No, no, no," Stefan says, and he's clutching her closer.

Remember this, he whispers into her hair. Remember this, remember this.

They're painted gold. It's the sunrise again, but she didn't remember the sun setting. When did the sun set, Stefan? _When did the sun—_

He throws up stars for her; they look like bits of bone in his hands. He throws up stars for her and they hover above them and her breathing slows as she stares, transfixed.

"What's happening to me?" she asks. She's burning. The sun is barely rising and she's burning, sweating.

Stefan closes his eyes, rests his forehead against hers. "You've been bit, Care. Do you remember?"

"Care," she repeats, dazed. "You never call me that."

He ignores her. "You're dying, Care. Do you remember?"

—

Klaus's bitemark on her neck. Her dress – new again, fresh and white and smelling of lemon groves – has a collar that twines around her neck in delicate lace and frayed ribbons. Stefan pushes it aside and she can see it. Klaus's teeth. Fringed red. Festering. A disease. She is a disease, she's dying, she's a disease—

"No," Stefan says firmly. "He's the disease. You're fine. You're beautiful."

Caroline laughs, fingering the bite. "Doesn't look so beautiful to me."

That's what it is, then. The hoops of fire. Stefan's sleeves burning.

She looks at him. His hair is short, pushed away from his face. Just hours ago they had been long, and he'd been in a rumpled shirt, bowtie hanging loose around his neck. She'd only seen him that way in pictures.

A Ripper only rips, a Ripper looks good while doing it.

She puts her hand on the side of his face. His eyes don't close, he doesn't lean into it. He looks at her, confused almost.

"Who are you now?" she asks. "You're not—you're not _him_, right? You're not the Ripper."

Stefan raises his hand; it covers hers like a rough woven blanket. "You think so?"

—

She knows she must be lying in a bed somewhere, sickly and pale, but right now she's tumbling down a hill, her shoes black and the sky blue, an endless blue. The clouds look like ocean waves. They crash above her, smelling of salt.

She stops running. She's breathless. The world is upside down, she realizes out loud.

She cranes her neck upwards and sees Stefan on the other side. He's reaching down (up?) to her.

"Are you the one giving me these Technicolor dreams?" she asks, a little accusingly. "I mean, they're great and all, but come on, Stefan."

Stefan pushes off the ground and tumbles through the air, caught in the impossibility of an endless free fall. It's years before he touches down in front of her. "What do you want to see, then?"

—

Caroline Forbes.

Lying in a bed somewhere, sickly and pale. A bite on her neck festering away. It sounds disgusting, it smells even worse. She turns away.

"I look like shit," she remarks blithely. "Let's go skip rocks."

—

She skips two, three, five, ten, a hundred rocks. The lake is purple and the sky is pink. Everything looks like taffy and bubblegum. She skips rocks until they crack the mountains blue in the distance. She thinks she feels a little sorry.

"Is anybody coming for me?" she asks. Too casually.

What she means is—well, she doesn't have to spell it out for you, does she?

Stefan, he thinks skipping rocks is beneath him, but he flicks one into the air, catching it deftly in his fingers. "I'm working on it," he replies. Too casually.

She turns to him. "Don't lie to me. I can handle it, you know."

"You're not girly little Caroline anymore," he recalls with a tilt of his head.

—

Damn right she's not. She may pat pink high on her cheeks and layer on the mascara, the glitter eyeliner, the glossy lipgloss, she may shake her frilly babydoll tops and pushes her fuzzy purple binders at you, but do not even make the _mistake_ of thinking she couldn't swallow you whole.

She's watching you. She can already taste you between her teeth.

—

"You're scary like this," Stefan says.

"Well, I'm dying," she snaps. "And while I may not feel pain right now – which, you know. Thanks. Whatever – you choose the _lamest _scenarios."

Stefan frowns. "What's lame about a drive in movie theatre?"

Caroline rolls her eyes and points at the car beside them with her peppermint stick: Damon and Elena, locked in a vicious kiss, steam fogging up the windows. "Is this my subconscious or yours? Because – _ew_."

The sooner she's healed, the better.

She does _not_ want this to be the last thing she sees before she dies.

"I picked Breakfast at Tiffany's," Stefan reminds her pointedly. "You love it."

On screen, Caroline twirls in her raincoat, umbrella lost. Cat! she calls. _Cat!_

Stefan appears, holding up his own umbrella. He's looking at her so intently Caroline has to laugh. "You're not going to kiss me, are you?"

Stefan smiles like he might.

—

He's Stefan again, the other Stefan.

"Other Stefan?" he shakes his head, chuckling. "There's only one of me."

_Wrong_, she wants to taunt. There's three of you. Silas, she wants to say. Kenneth too, remember? Kenneth, the paramedic? The paramedic in Atlanta. The paramedic with the little puppy he's hiding in his apartment. The paramedic she'd killed, and then called nine-one-one for.

"Look who's saving who now," Stefan smirks. His bowtie is coated in a layer of dried blood.

"You look so vintage," Caroline comments.

"You mean I look old."

"Moldy."

"Like aged wine," Stefan discounts. "Fine like aged wine, Care."

"Don't call me that."

"Why not?" he challenges, stepping closer. He twirls a lock of her hair around his finger, blows it away from her face.

"Because you're not Stefan. Not my Stefan."

He's so close she can smell the blood on his tongue, the spearmint on his teeth. "Why do you think that?"

"Stefan would never touch me like this," she whispers, rooted to the spot.

Stefan, _not Stefan_, he cups her chin roughly. "You think so?"

He kisses her. She tries not to bite his tongue.

—

Klaus had tried to kiss her but he'd bitten her instead, Stefan had tried to kiss her but she'd bitten _him_ instead. Odd, this turn of events.

She sits on her bed swathed in her blanket, staring at him. Not horrified, but just – something. Either way, she is not okay with this.

"I'm sorry," Stefan says. He looks guilty. "My head… hasn't been screwed straight – not since those Travelers—"

"Made creepy Traveler stir-fry out of your brain?" she finishes. She fingers at the festering bite on her neck. She's almost tired. She's almost worried. "It's fine. I'm—I'm fine. Are you fine?"

Stefan shakes his head, but it's not a no. He's shaking his head because she's _dying_ and they're just chilling in some dark corner of his mind and Klaus has all but disappeared and she's asking him if he's _fine_.

Caroline, Caroline, Caroline.

—

"I'll get you the cure," he says. His hands grasp around hers. She wishes he would push her against her headboard instead, kiss her senseless. Kiss her dead. That wouldn't be a bad way to go, would it?

"I'll get you the cure," he promises. "If I have to drag him here by the whites of his bones,_ I will get you that cure_."

"You better," she says weakly. "I don't want to die without ever watching The Winter Soldier. I'd never forgive you."

"I know you wouldn't," Stefan says ruefully. "I know."

—

God, how many times does Klaus have to bite her for him to _get it_?

Leave me alone.

Leave me _alone_.

She coughs, and it tastes like blood. She doesn't bother looking at the tissue.

Klaus appears out of the shadows. Is it a dream? Am I dreaming?

"I'm sorry, love," he says—

—

Shut up, she snarls. Shut up, shut up, shut up.

Stay away, leave me _alone_—

"He's trying to heal you," Stefan says. He's here too. Sitting by her side, holding her hand. He looks weary. "Let him."

Circus limbo, she remembers. Klaus is the lion about to swallow her head, Stefan the fearless ringmaster dressed up in red (dressed up in blood), whip cracking.

She's walking the tightrope but she's falling, falling, falling with her eyes wide open.

—

Her room is a pinnacle of yellows and blues, not a pinwheel: far from it. Lace curtains, cheer trophies, the ones she should have put away in a box long ago. She's not in high school anymore, God.

She raises a hand to her neck. "Is this a dream?"

She feels nothing but smooth skin. "This feels like a dream."

"It's not," someone says quietly from across the room. She screws her eyes shut, hopes for Stefan. The right Stefan. _Her_ Stefan.

She opens her eyes and he's crouched in front of her, eyes like blades glinting silver in the moonlight. There's no blood in them, no matter how much she searches.

"Caroline," he says, like he needs reassuring. It's daylight – no sun rising, no sun setting. Too late for that, and the other – not yet. The sun hangs high in the sky. Its hands like bright bands of yellow steams in through the window; it rings him in halos.

"Yes," she answers. "It's me."


End file.
